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Site Customization

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How to customize your SharePoint site?

By default SharePoint comes with standard templates like Team Site, Blank Site, Document workspace, Wiki, blog, Basic Meeting Workspace, Collaboration Portal etc. It very regular practice that creating site with your identity, Corporate follow this ever since SharePoint previous release. Unlike WSS V2, V3 has got more flexibility in customizing the site, I would say this is simply because of the Master pages. You can create any number for master pages and you have the provision of switching between the master pages. In this post I am gonna focus more on customizing site by creating site template and site definition.

What is a site definition?

                In simple works I would say it is a set of files present in you file system, all the OOB(out of box) site definitions are located under ...\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates.

What is a site template?

                It is a snapshot of another site, resides in the SharePoint database.

When do we use site definition and template?

                 Considering the ease of create I would prefer site template, for customizing in a broad perspective, site definition is better.

 How to create a site definition?
  • 1. Make a copy of folder ...\12\TEMPLATE\SiteTemplates\sts 
  • 2. Rename the folder to STSCUST(any name will do) DON'T use any space between the names.
  • 3. To make aware of the WSS V3 about the new site definition(STSCUST), you need to either create a new config file or edit the existing one. Go to the directory ..\12\Template\1033\XML, here you can either modify the WEBTEMP.xml or create a copy of this, I prefer to edit this. Inside this file you could see <Template> nodes inside <Templates>. Create a new configuration(copy one of the existing configuration and make changes)

<Template Name="STS" ID="1">

    <Configuration ID="0" Title="Team Site" Hidden="FALSE" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/stsprev.png" Description="A site for teams to quickly organize, author, and share information. It provides a document library, and lists for managing announcements, calendar items, tasks, and discussions." DisplayCategory="Collaboration" > </Configuration>

    <Configuration ID="1" Title="Blank Site" Hidden="FALSE" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/blankprev.png" Description="A blank site for you to customize based on your requirements." DisplayCategory="Collaboration" AllowGlobalFeatureAssociations="False" > </Configuration>

    <Configuration ID="2" Title="Document Workspace" Hidden="FALSE" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/dwsprev.png" Description="A site for colleagues to work together on a document. It provides a document library for storing the primary document and supporting files, a tasks list for assigning to-do items, and a links list for resources related to the document." DisplayCategory="Collaboration" > </Configuration>

    <Configuration ID="4" Title="My test " Hidden="FALSE" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/dwsprev.png" Description="A site for colleagues to work together on a document. It provides a document library for storing the primary document and supporting files, a tasks list for assigning to-do items, and a links list for resources related to the document." DisplayCategory="Collaboration" > </Configuration>

  </Template>

  • 4. Do an IIS reset, Create a new site, you would get the newly created template.

 

How to create a site template?
  • 1. Create a new Site(using a any template)
  • 2. Customize it using SharePoint designer(2007 Office System product), You can change the Look and feel, you can add controls, webparts etc
  • 3. Save the site(through the SharePoint designer)
  • 4. Go to "Site Actions" à"Site Setttings" click on the option "Save site as template" under the "Look and feel"
  • 5. "File Name" give any name
  • 6. "Template Name" any name eg. "my company site"
  • 7. Hit "Ok"

     This new site come up exactly the same as the site from which you created the template (stp file)

 

 

Links

https://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/07/WSS30Preview/default.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.com/randalli/archive/2006/11/06/branding-sharepoint-sites-msdn-articles-published.aspx

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/v3templates.mspx

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